Piscataway – led by new head coach bob Turco – won the East Orange Summer League championship this off-season. (Source: @pwaybasketball on Twitter)
Calling the Piscataway and Sayreville boys’ basketball teams surprises this year might not be the most accurate way to describe them, so maybe a better phrase would be “pleasant surprises.”
When Bob Turco left St. Thomas Aquinas after six highly successful seasons and three GMC Tournament championships, no one was quite sure how the Chiefs would be, although everyone knew what kind of coach they were getting.
And everyone knows what kind of coach Sayreville has, too. John Wojcik has been at the school for 16 seasons, but they’re having their best year since 2016-17, when they went 22-8, and made it to the GMC Tournament final, falling to St. Joseph-Metuchen in the midst of their unprecedented run of nine county titles in ten years.
So, yeah, pleasant surprise, but maybe not really a surprise at all.
Tuesday night, the two will meet at Monroe High School in the GMC Tournament semifinals, the first of a doubleheader you can hear exclusively on Central Jersey Sports Radio, presented by the George Street Playhouse in downtown New Brunswick. Tip-time is 5:00, and pregame starts at 4:45 with Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel on the call. Click here to listen.
Piscataway (21-4) bonded in the off-season after Turco’s arrival, playing summer league games, and learning their new coach’s style. That style starts with defense. But the Chiefs can also score, to the tune of 1,805 points. They’ve scored the most points of anyone in the GMC Red Division, including division champ Colonia.
No one has off-the-charts numbers, but this is a team. Senior Nate Davis leads at 14.1 points a game – with a team-best 42 treys – while Donald Nwaigwe (pronounced “WEEG-way”) adds 11.5 points and a team-leading 6.4 rebounds per game – and Vaighn Turner and Josh Lima round out the double-digit scorers at 10.2 ant 10 points per game, respectively.
Sayreville (20-3) has been in a little bit of a rebuild the last two seasons, but playing current juniors Chidi Chukwurah and Sam Jones as freshman has “paid dividends” in the mind of Wojick.
Chukwurah is tops at 18 points per game and 8.4 rebounds per game. He’s also got a team-leading 13 blocks. Jones has a team-high 52 triples on the season, and is averaging 16.3 points per game. Christian Torres distributes the ball (107 assists, best on the team) and averages 7.1 points per game.
Torres is third in the GMC in assists, and the Piscataway Magnet transfer had to sit to start the season due to NJSIAA transfer rules, so he wasn’t in a Bomber uniform when they played the Chiefs on December 23rd, a 62-57 loss that easily could have gone differently otherwise.
Click below for pregame chats with both head coaches with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel:
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